Call me an automation nut. Nothing better than having stuff occur automatically. I recently learned how to lower my homes thermostat without me touching it at any time of the day. This article will discuss how to integrate a Nest Cam with a Honeywell Thermostat. The method discussed within this article also applies to a DropCam.
This site has a lot of articles that discuss a lot of aspects about Nest Cam as a home security camera. I have several cameras made by this company. It’s owned by Google. They purchased Nest a few years back. I think they make one of the best home security cameras out there. You can read our detailed review of the Nest Cam if you have a few extra minutes.
The Honeywell RTH9580WF Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat is what I use. It’s a thermostat that’s connected to your home’s wireless router and can be accessed through Honeywell’s smartphone app or their web app. Honeywell has a series of smart connected thermostats and what we will discuss should work on all the Honeywell Smart Thermostats. You can read our review of this Honeywell Thermostat if you would like.
Why would you want to integrate a Nest Cam with a Honeywell Thermostat? It’s all about motion detection. I wanted to turn climate control on for the area of the house that has people in it. A Nest Cam has motion detection. We’re going to leverage it to turn on the air conditioning.
You might ask why I didn’t use a Nest Thermostat as that would have been easiest to integrate. Good question. I wanted the most reliable and easiest to use thermostat. I based my selection on positive online reviews regarding reliability and ease of installation and use. Both are good thermostats. The Honeywell model was a little better.
The integration aspect wasn’t considered until weeks after the Honeywell was installed. I come up with some strange ideas at 2 in the morning. How to integrate a Nest Cam with a Honeywell Thermostat was one of those late night ideas.
Here is how we get this done.
Stringify is the name of the service we will be using. It’s an app that ties devices and services from different manufacturers. Stringify facilitates this by creating “flows” between “things”. The Nest Cam is a thing. The Honeywell Smart Thermostat is a thing. The act of using your Nest Cam’s motion to turn down my thermostat is called a flow. Our article on using Stringify for a Nest Cam goes into deeper detail.
To integrate a Nest Cam with a Honeywell Thermostat, download the Stringify app to your smartphone. Stringify currently supports iOS and they are working on an Android app. So for now, it’s your iPhone or iPad. Establish your logon credentials.
Now, authorize Stringify to access your Nest account. Once that’s done, all of your Nest devices appear within Stringify. Next, authorize Stringify to your Honeywell account. Now you will see all the thermostats attached to your account.
Go into the flow creation dialogue, hit the plus sign at the bottom, add your Nest Cam where you want motion to be monitored as well as the thermostat you want to control. Configure the Nest Cam thing on the flow to monitor motion. Configure the Honeywell Smart Thermostat to go to the temperature you want. Now move the thermostat icon over to the Nest Cam icon. That will link the things together. Lastly, enable the flow.
I like to use the time settings on the Honeywell Smart Thermostat app to turn the temperature higher at a certain time of day. That way, you don’t need to worry about leaving the A/C too low all day. However, you can also create a flow that changes the desired temperature when you aren’t home using the Stringify location thing.
I found it easy to integrate my Nest Cam with a Honeywell Thermostat using Stringify. It’s an easy to use service that works reliably with both devices.